How to Not Die
by whimsycality
Summary: McGee's vacation goes a little off course and his muse gets some unexpected inspiration.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Set post season seven for BTVS, Season 8 never has and never will exist. For NCIS, anytime after Ziva joined the team.

* * *

"I swear the path was right here!" Buffy exclaimed, running agitated fingers through her blonde hair and grimacing when she remembered the short bob it was currently styled into, thanks to an unfortunate incident with a slime demon and her latest group of minis.

Faith just smirked at her and shook her head. "Ready to admit you got us lost yet?"

Buffy glared and didn't bother dignifying the derisive comment with a response, instead glancing over her shoulder to make sure that her sister, and the man they'd rescued, were still following. The man still looked a little shell shocked, but was staring at them with bright, curious eyes – she could practically see the questions bubbling in his head and groaned, starting forward again. The sooner they got back to their car, the sooner they could drop him off in town and she could have a nice long hot bath and forget this weekend ever happened.

Timothy McGee blinked bemusedly and continued to follow the three beautiful women who had rescued him, mind whirling. He'd been stuck on his latest book and had taken a rare weekend off, finding a nice secluded cabin and hoping to get some serious writing done without the distractions of cases, his coworkers, or his continuing not-just-friends, but not more either, situation with Abby.

Unfortunately, instead of some quiet time with his muse, he'd barely settled in when a group of people, who looked like they belonged at one of the sci-fi conventions he secretly attended once a year, broke into his cabin and knocked him unconscious. He'd been awakened some hours later and found himself naked, tied to a stone altar in the middle of the forest, with strange symbols painted on his skin in a dark red substance his nose said was blood.

Beginning to come to the sickening realization that his kidnappers weren't wearing costumes, he'd just about given up hope of ever seeing anyone he cared about again, when a ridiculously hot blonde and an equally gorgeous brunette had burst into the clearing, wielding very shiny, and very sharp, medieval weapons. The night had just gotten stranger from there, with the things that had captured him swarming to attack the women, while a third one popped up from somewhere and untied him before handing him his clothes with a faint blush and a gesture to follow her.

Not being a complete idiot, Tony's opinion to the contrary, he had, and soon after he'd gotten redressed, the other two women had appeared, weapons dripping strange colored liquids he just knew Abby would kill to see under a microscope, bantering cheerfully about who had killed the most demons, since apparently, that's what the things had been.

Part of him was convinced that he'd ingested a hallucinogen somehow, but the rest, the part that ached from laying naked on cold, unyielding stone, and that could feel the burn on his wrists and ankles where the ropes had dug in, knew that this was in fact real, and was having a hard time reconciling that with the cold hard facts he'd always assumed made up the world.

The two women, still arguing about where they were and how they'd gotten there, suddenly stopped, and he looked up from carefully watching his feet to see that the brunette one had managed to push the blonde one up against a tree and was kissing her thoroughly. Choking slightly, he only managed to tear his eyes away when the girl next to him, who'd introduced herself as Dawn, snorted as they both halted.

"Giles better give me that pay raise, every time I babysit these two it's the same thing. Fight, then make out, fight, then fuck in the backseat. It's worse than when she was sneaking around with Spike, because now she doesn't even try to hide her sex life from me." Turning big blue eyes on him, she shook her head in clear exasperation. "I'm beginning to regret insisting on field work."

"It sounds awful," he said diplomatically, summoning the higher brain functions that had been suppressed by being almost sacrificed by demons that were not supposed to exist, and rescued by the hottest women he'd ever seen, who now appeared to be trying to writhe their way _through_ the tree. The thought of how jealous Tony would be made him grin suddenly. "My coworkers drive me crazy too, Tony's a movie obsessed man child and Ziva has some cultural translation issues and is nearly as deadly as your sister; watching the two of them flirt is like watching a train wreck, too horrific to look away."

She laughed and then raised an eyebrow, pointedly not looking towards the moaning couple still blocking the path. "And who do _you_ flirt with at work?"

He blushed, wondering how exactly he'd ended up thinking about the situation he was trying to avoid thinking about, in the midst of being rescued from human sacrifice. Someone was laughing at him right now, and he had a feeling it was Tony.

"Um, well, our lab tech, Abby, she's..." he trailed off, not sure why he was telling this girl anything, and definitely not sure how to describe Abby. Bottled sunshine in a dark and quirky package? That didn't even begin to do her justice.

Luckily, his youngest rescuer didn't seem to want any other details. "Everyone's getting some but me. Even nerdy authors who get themselves kidnapped for ritual sacrifice," she muttered, then reached down and snagged a pinecone off the ground. Pulling her arm back, she threw it, grinning with satisfaction as it bounced off the leather-clad ass of the brunette.

Faith turned and glared, while Buffy had lost her irritated expression in favor of a lust-dazed smile that made McGee blush again. Dawn just stared the brunette down until she rolled her eyes. "Fine, little D, I'll rock your sister's world later. Let's get Mr. Submarine Boxers here back to civilization."

McGee blushed darker and ignored Dawn's chuckles as they resumed their trek through the woods. There were no more R-rated pit stops and eventually they reached the road where the three girls had left their SUV.

It was with a mixture of relief and reluctance that he watched them pull away after they dropped him off in the small town close by, with a warning to avoid being alone after dark in isolated areas and to never ever verbally invite someone into his home. Once it was daylight, he reclaimed his belongings from the cabin and moved them into a nice, well-lit hotel room. Staring down at his typewriter, a smile curved his lips upwards as words finally began to flow from his fingers.

So much for crime, it seemed his next novel would be venturing into the horror genre.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I'd had another chapter in mind all along, and all of your lovely reviews definitely encouraged me to write it. I'm now working on mentally plotting a third, probably encompassing the plot of McGee's next book (with potential excerpts if the muse will cooperate ;)). So we'll see how long that takes for me to write.

* * *

McGee looked up from the table to smile at the next fan who wanted their book signed and felt his jaw fall open in shock as he saw a familiar beautiful blonde wrapped around an equally familiar gorgeous brunette, accompanied by the same lovely young tag-along, all smirking at him. "So, Tim," Buffy drawled, "do we get a cut of your profits from _Terrible Beauty_? I could always use a bigger shoe budget."

"No, you couldn't," Dawn reprimanded her. "Now money for a new laptop, and maybe that first car I'm getting a little old for... that would come in handy."

"You're both boring," Faith interjected. "If Timmy's buying us anything, it's that Bahamas vacation Giles refuses to authorize. I still need to get Buffy to a nude beach."

Buffy blushed and murmured something in Faith's ear that made the sultry brunette laugh throatily and Dawn glare at both of them.

McGee blinked bemusedly. "Um," he managed to say, then fell silent again, not sure how to react to this unexpected reunion.

Dawn chuckled, pointedly turning away from her sister and Faith. "How about you buy us dinner and we'll call it even." She winked at him, causing his cheeks to pink. "Maybe we can give you some ideas for your next book."

"Well, I," McGee cleared his throat and summoned his confidence. "I can't do dinner. But unless we get a new case tomorrow, I can do lunch?" All three women nodded and he managed a smile. "There's a great cafe -"

"We're just tourists, really," Buffy interrupted him with a winning smile he was sure had gotten her a lot of things she wanted, "How about we pick you up at work, which we do know how to find, and you can direct us from there."

McGee blinked, wondering _why_ they knew where the Navy Yard was, and how everyone there would react to these three. "Um, I guess. I'll need to add you to the list of cleared visitors, it's not like walking into a police station."

"No need, Timmy boy," Faith told him with a cheeky wink, "We have clearance coming out of our asses."

Dawn rolled her eyes and Buffy laughed. "Uh, right," McGee answered, wondering distractedly if the only reason the rest of the people in line hadn't complained about the delay yet was because of the ridiculous level of attractiveness presented by the three women in front of him. "See you at one then."

"Peachy," Buffy said, a little more mischief seeping into her smile. "Can't wait to meet your old muses."

McGee swallowed, hard, and felt a little faint as the three women wandered off into the bookstore. It took his next fan three tries to get his attention and he spent the rest of the signing wondering rather desperately if he should call in sick the next day.

McGee had almost managed to entirely forget about the three women invading his life once again, caught up in the details of wrapping up their last case while ignoring Tony's latest attempts at office warfare. How on Earth DiNozzo had managed to slip a USB controlled rocket launcher past the Boss was beyond him, but McGee was also fairly confident that he could take control of it easily, and Tony would learn (once again) that anything connected to a computer was not the best idea to use as a weapon against him.

The Boss clearing his throat forced Tony to stop shooting things at him and McGee to raise his head from his computer screen. He'd never seen that particular expression on Gibbs's face before, wasn't sure what it meant, but before he could really consider the anomaly, he caught sight of the three women standing behind the Boss and felt faint again. _Oh_. Right. _Fuck_.

"Hey Timmy," Faith said with a smirk, her eyes flicking between him and Tony, who was staring at the three beautiful women with something akin to awe on his face.

"We have official permission to kidnap you for lunch," Dawn added with a wide grin as she glanced at Gibbs, a look of appreciation in her blue eyes that did funny things to McGee's brain.

Her sister also seemed to have caught the look and she shot her younger sister a forbidding scowl. "Don't even think about it, Dawnie, or I might have to have a conversation with Giles about your new thing for silver foxes." Dawn pouted and Buffy rolled her eyes before turning a surprisingly serious gaze on the Boss. "Thank you for the tour, Agent Gibbs, I'll be in touch."

Gibbs nodded, that indecipherable expression still gracing his face, before he turned to McGee and raised an eyebrow. "Well? Don't keep these lovely ladies waiting."

McGee flushed and quickly logged out of the system, rising to his feet and knocking a foam rocket off his shoulder. Tony snagged his sleeve as he walked past and McGee paused. "Wait," Tony hissed. "Who are they? Why do they look like the women in your book? What's going on?"

Grinning, McGee shook his head. "Sorry, Tony, that's none of your business." Pulling away from the other man, his grin faded into a half grimace as Dawn latched onto his arm and began to pull him toward the elevator. One glance back at Tony, staring at him with his mouth hanging open before Gibbs cracked him upside the back of the head was enough to restore his good humor and he turned to his companions with unforced cheer. "So, killed any exciting demons lately?"


End file.
